Slices: Luke Dragon is painting Oakland’s Chinatown Gold

A few years ago, I would catch the bus from Alameda to work in Downtown Oakland and after passing through the tube, the 51 cuts through Chinatown before making it’s way down Broadway on it’s trek through Oakland. I had grown up taking this bus to BART or to get just about anywhere, and started to notice similarly styled murals popping up all across Chinatown’s walls. Suddenly the neighborhood was being adorned with graffitied golden dragons throughout, and eventually after seeing them continue to spring up my curiosity reached an all time high – I had to find who was behind this. Some of the murals had the link to Dragon School’s website, which was different at the time and though I reached out through the contact email (and followed up) I got no answer.

Eventually I logged the idea in the back of my mind, though I must have mentioned it to my dad – who one day texted me ‘hey there’s a dude painting a dragon near the entrance to 880’, so after speeding over I was at long last face to face with the man behind Dragon School. I trailed Luke Dragon over the next few weeks, learning about the organization and his motives behind it all, watching him craft incredible murals and interact with the residents of Chinatown. Dragon School’s ties in Chinatown are undeniable, take a stroll throughout the area and you’ll see it for yourself – learn more about Luke Dragon below in the first episode of our mini doc series Slices.

YK La Familia's Point Guard. Raised by yeti in the alps till the age of three, he was trained at an early age in the ancient art of Thizz dancing. His hobbies include eating pizza & going on twitter rants.